


For Those Who Came Before

by Leni



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Gen, Post-Chosen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-15
Updated: 2014-11-15
Packaged: 2018-02-25 11:11:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2619638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leni/pseuds/Leni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Buffy and Faith have a question for their Watcher.</p><p>"The other girls, the ones before us," she said. "Where are they?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Those Who Came Before

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tigriswolf](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigriswolf/gifts).



> Written for Tigriswolf at [Comment Fic](http://comment-fic.livejournal.com/571977.html?thread=80035401#t80035401). Prompt: **honoring those who came before.**

It was rare that both Buffy and Faith would approach him at the same time, not without being at odds and looking at him to arbiter. They worked well together when it came to fighting any threat, if only by agreeing to give each other a wide berth and focus on the main goal; but when it came to household matters, the two of them butted heads just as they'd done when they were seventeen.

Remembering the ordeal about respecting other people's property, even if it was in the common fridge (Buffy had been uncommonly stern about the issue, while Faith maintained it had been a simple mistake... done thrice), Giles braced himself, just in case.

But there was no animosity between them, and they even glanced at each other and gave matching nods before they sat down across the desk from him.

Giles lowered his pen and closed the Diary he'd been updating, acknowledging that they had his full attention, and waited.

Buffy was the first to speak. "The other girls, the ones before us," she said. "Where are they?"

A dreadful feeling gripped him. He knew where this was heading, and he'd hoped the subject wouldn't be raised.

"We thought we'd pay our respects," Faith explained, mistaking his frown for confusion. "Seems right, being here and all."

They'd arrived in London the week before, looking for anything they might salvage from the ruins of the Council. In the meanwhile, they had started to build a new headquarters, as it made sense not to waste the web of informants the Council had raised in the city through the decades.

A very subtle web, as the Council had not believed in leaving proof of their actions to the public view.

No proof at all.

"We figure they must be buried close by, right?" Faith gave a vague wave that Giles supposed must encompass the whole area. "I mean, sure. The Slayer was sent out to deal with the baddies, but there must be baddies enough around here."

"Oh, there are," Buffy supplied, lifting her hand absently to the cut she'd gotten last night.

"Ah. The Slayers that passed. Yes, of course," Giles temporized, trying to find the right words and not twist them into a lie. "Most were returned to their families."

Buffy saw through the attempt at once. "And those who weren't?" she asked, narrowing her eyes a little. "We've been around for centuries, and we're not exactly family-friendly. Half the girls who came to Sunnydale didn't even remember their parents. Hell, Kendra didn't know her last name!"

Faith's eyebrow lifted in surprise. It mustn't be a subject that was often raised, the Slayer who'd come between them.

"You have to understand. Slayers are a big power in the underground, once they're Called. But they're not born with that power. For most of their lives-" and he could have bitten his tongue at the slip, though it was the truth. The records had yet to show a Slayer who'd gotten to double the age she'd been when she was Called "-the girls are... a possibility. Perhaps a little stronger than the norm, a little faster. But not more than another girl would be if she applied herself."

Long used to his need to explain the background of a situation before he got to the point, both girls nodded and got comfortable in their seats, exchanging a brief look of amusement at his expense.

This once, Giles didn't mind. Let them laugh a little now.

"But once a Potential becomes the Slayer, she gets the power. Is _filled_ with it." Giles sighed, cringing inwardly not at what he had to say, but to whom he was saying it. This wouldn't make them any fonder of the old Council. "Some spells... some rituals... require a vessel for great powers."

Both girls drew back, twin looks of revulsion on their faces.

No. Not girls. Young women, Giles reminded himself; perhaps the first Slayers to be called such and not be stretching the truth. They had faced worse than one of the Council's secrets. They might even be the first to make that record, perhaps even to live far beyond it.

"Vessels...." Buffy said, unable to contain a shudder. "And empty casks would do." 

Giles nodded grimly.

"What did the Council do?" Faith asked, her fingers fidgeting against her leg as if they couldn't wait to be curled against a stake.

"There were pyres," he said quickly, wanting to get it over with. "More recently, funeral parlors that allow for a cremation."

"They wouldn't have kept them," Buffy sneered, conviction behind her voice. "They couldn't keep them alive, and they wouldn't guard their bodies. Why bother with the ashes?"

Giles remembered being shocked at her lack of respect for the institution that would help her survive. It wasn't until much later that he realized he'd gotten it wrong. It was the Council who counted on the Slayers, to keep a valid claim on their spot in the supernatural hierarchy. They needed the power to help the Slayer, Giles had learned since he was a boy. But how else were they to wrest that power from the other parties, both human and not, if not by threatening to unleash the Slayer upon them?

In a way, Buffy had been lucky to come upon a serious threat. Even the Council had agreed that keeping the mouth of hell closed had to be a priority, and had never tried to remove her from Sunnydale.

(They'd jumped on Faith as soon as they'd had an excuse.)

In the end, the Council hadn't done any kindness for Buffy; both when it tried to rule over her and when it had abandoned her to an active hellmouth. Where the other girls remembered Council members as the people who had trained and supported them, in Buffy's mind, he and Merrick (and even Wesley, in the end) had needed to stray from the Council's teachings before they had been of any true help. "Not even the ashes," she whispered, shaking her head.

"Bastards," Faith hissed, then asked again, "What _did_ they do?"

"Tossed the urns into the bottom of the ocean."

The insult wasn't in what had been done, but _why_ , and the two of them needed a moment to take in that show of callousness. Then, slowly, Buffy started to smile. She turned to Faith and, in a rare show of true friendship, grabbed the hand that had been restless against Faith's jeans. "What about a day at the beach, just us and the girls."

Faith frowned for a moment - unaware that Giles was copying the gesture at Buffy's suggestion - but her expression cleared quickly and soon she was giving into a satisfied smirk. "A day of fun, games, and sand castles, right next to the ocean. Sounds good to me, B."

"No Watchers allowed." Buffy flicked a sincere look of regret at him. "Sorry, Giles."

Giles shook his head, already picturing the scene. Dozens of Slayers running free across the sand, laughing and chatting and fighting, because that was what teenage girls _did_. And all of them had a shot, now, to live the years their predecessors had been cut off from.

He should have thought of it himself.

 

The End  
15/11/14


End file.
